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February 2018 Volume 36 Issue I February 2018 Chestnut-bellied Seed Finch (Sporophila angolensis) | Brazil 2017 Volume 36 Issue I Photo by LSUMNS graduate student Marco Rego February 2018 Volume 36, Issue 1 Letter from the Director... Museum of I am pleased to announce that legendary LSU ornithologist Natural Science Theodore “Ted” A. Parker, III (1953-1993) will be inducted into Director and the LSU College of Science Hall of Distinction at a ceremony on April 20th, 2018. Although I only knew Ted for a brief time, his Curators charisma, enthusiasm, and encyclopedic knowledge of birds were inspiring. Here I’ve posted an abridged version of the nomination letter that Gregg Gorton, Van Remsen, and I submitted. __________________________________________________________________ Robb T. Brumfield Director, Roy Paul Daniels Professor and Curator of Ted was already a legendary figure in ornithology and conservation before Genetic Resources his untimely death 25 years ago at age 40 on a cloud-enshrouded mountain in Ecuador while surveying habitats for establishing parks. The arc of his life and career Frederick H. Sheldon encompassed in breathtakingly rapid fashion a range of notable accomplishments. George H. Lowery, Jr., Professor and Curator of Genetic As a youngster, Ted was a birding prodigy with a nearly audiographic memory Resources whom some referred to as “the Mozart of ornithology,” and who broke the record for birds seen in one year in the United States while he was only 18 years old. He then Christopher C. Austin displayed field-ornithological genius by mastering the most challenging avifauna Curator of in the world--the 3500 bird species of South America--within a few years of going Amphibians & Reptiles there. Parker joined the LSU family when he was a junior at the University of Arizona and received a phone call from LSU Museum of Natural Science Director Prosanta Chakrabarty George Lowery inviting him to accompany an LSU expedition to Peru organized Curator of Fishes by Dr. John P. O’Neill. One year later, after Parker had spent nearly that entire year in Peru, Lowery wrote to him: “You made ornithological history.” He was referring Jacob A. Esselstyn Curator of Mammals to the new birds for Peru that Parker had discovered, his exploration of areas of the country not previously surveyed by any ornithologist, his tape-recording for the very first time hundreds of bird species’ voices, as well as his adding hundreds of J. V. Remsen John Stauffer McIlhenny bird specimens to the LSU Museum of Natural Science collection, many for the first Professor and time. Curator of Birds Once he got a taste for field Rebecca Saunders research in South America, Parker Curator of Anthropology spent nearly half the rest of his life there on dozens of expeditions and Sophie Warny collecting/recording forays, either AASP Associate Professor Curator of Palynology & with the LSU Museum, or as a funded Director of Education researcher for the World Wildlife Fund and Conservation International, or as a professional tour guide—which allowed him to do his field work while also teaching and mentoring in- country residents and birders in the many countries in which he travelled. ...continued on page 31 LSU Museum of Natural Science Page 1 Museum Quarterly, February 2018 Mammal Expeditions to Central Sulawesi by Mark Swanson The rainforests of Sulawesi, a large island in province and neither had ever been surveyed for central Indonesia, shroud many biological mysteries. mammals. For most mountains, simple questions such as “Which species are there?” and “How does species diversity Comprehensive sampling of specimens was a change with increasing elevation?” remain elusive. theme of this trip, and the number of anticipated projects Beyond that little is known about the ecology and is overwhelming. We prepared mammal specimens as natural history of each of those individual species. What traditional skin, skeleton, and fluid specimens so that are they eating? What are their reproductive strategies? we can examine their external and internal morphology. Which other organisms live on and inside them? While These preparations will helpLSUMNS graduate student the answers to these questions have serious implications Jon Nations study the evolution of climbing ability in for conservation and human health, we seek them out rats and will also help our collaborators understand how for the thrill of pure discovery. What is hiding in these the shapes of the nasal bones and gastrointestinal tracts forests? have evolved over time. We prepared microscope slides with blood for each animal so that they can be screened The National Science Foundation is supporting for blood parasites such as malaria and trypanosomes, a collaborative effort between multiple U.S. natural as well as dried blood on filter paper so that the genomes history museums and the Indonesian Institute of of those blood parasites can be sequenced. We collected Sciences to fill these knowledge gaps and transform our kidneys and lungs in order to look for the presence of understanding of Sulawesi rainforests through a series Leptospira bacteria and Pneumocystis fungi, respectively. of expeditions to 10 mountains. Scientists on each of Both of these microbes are common in those tissues and these expeditions work to document the birds, reptiles, potentially co-speciate with their hosts and members amphibians, mammals, fishes, and arthropods through of our research group are trying to understand if these preserving the animals for research collections. Not only microbes are co-evolving with their rat hosts, or affecting will these specimens tell us what is living in Sulawesi each other’s evolution. We saved rat testicles in formalin rainforests, but they will also help us understand the so that sperm morphology can be compared across diets, parasites, physiology, and evolution of each species. However, to me, the most exciting prep types species. This past year I represented LSU as a member are the ethanol preserved stomachs and subsamples of of the mammal team for expeditions to Mt. Katopasa the gastrointestinal tract. As funding allows, we will use in August and Mt. Torompupu in November. These these samples and DNA metabarcoding to find out the mountains are on opposite sides of the Central Sulawesi diversity of fruits, arthropods, and fungi each species is LSU Museum of Natural Science Page 2 Museum Quarterly, February 2018 eating as well as which microbes inhabit their guts. These data could tell us how microbial species are interacting with their host rats and shrews, possibly helping them derive nutritional value from their food. All of these projects are just a portion of what we are planning to do with the mammal specimens! Just as many preparation types and projects were carried out for the birds, herps, and arthropods. Additionally, the uses of this collection are only going to grow in the future as new questions and technologies emerge. Highlights from Mt. Katopasa include a probable new species of Taeromys. Members of this genus have soft grey fur and are thought to be frugivores, or fruit eaters. These are always my favorite animals to catch because of their large size and their unique diet. Interestingly, many of the specimens of this species we collected had moss in their teeth. Could these rats be eating moss despite its high fiber content and seemingly meager nutritional value? How are they sharing food resources with other known fruit eaters like Taeromys celebensis and Rattus facetus? Our investigations using stomach contents, stable isotopes, and gut microbe DNA sequences will help unravel these mysteries. Speaking of Taeromys, on our Mt. Torompupu expedition we also caught the first specimens of Taeromys hamatus in over 40 years. Of the 4 species of Maxomys (spiny rats) known from Sulawesi, the only one that has not been caught in recent decades is Maxomys wattsi (Watt’s spiny rat). This has made inferring the relationship of this species to other members of the genus difficult because there are no fresh tissues available and the skins of the previously collected specimens were preserved with formaldehyde. Despite our general success at sequencing thousands of loci from old specimens, we have been unable to extract DNA from samples of this particular species! Fortunately we were able to collect several specimens of Maxomys wattsi from 1300 to 2000 meters on Mount Katopasa, doubling the number of specimens held in the world’s museums. Top: Taeromys hamatus from Mount Torompupu Middle: Maxomys wattsi from Mount Katopasa Bottom: Haeromys minahassae from Mount Torompupu At our 1400-meter camp on Mount Katopasa, we Title Photo: The forest of Mount Katopasa noticed the tails of some shrews are much longer than those we have collected at any other site on Sulawesi. We also noticed these shrews hop and move across the giant centipedes which are over a foot long, venomous, ground with lightening fast speed. Could this be a new and resemble nightmares incarnate. We occasionally species? Which predator could they be avoiding which found them feeding on dead rats in our traps. The requires them to move so fast? One possibility are the functional morphology of these long-tailed shrews LSU Museum of Natural Science Page 3 Museum Quarterly, February 2018 A long tailed, jumping shrew (Crocidura sp.) from Mount Katopasa. as well as the possible to eat fruit in trees, but sleep on the ground. predator-prey dynamics of shrews and centipedes Despite three weeks of fieldwork on each of are fun topics for future these mountains and hundreds of mammal specimens study. representing dozens of species, our understanding of what lives on these mountains is still incomplete. Our Additional sampling was limited to a narrow swath up each mountain highlights from our and we had only a few days to sample the forests over Mount Torompupu 2000 meters. Despite this, team member Heru Handika expedition include a caught an exciting new species of rat on Mount Katopasa Crunomys celebensis as well as shrew-rats on Mount Torompupu.
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